poem || Alex Wennerberg

GEORGE W BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

im going to die

soon????????

10% off any catering order

3 poems || Philip Byron Oakes

Cleaning Up

Discount catharsis saving on water running off behind

the ears for tragic overtones making their peace. Vestige

of parity sharing a narrow focus pandering to a breadth

on life support. Salivary rivulets touring the chinny chin

getting out front of the mouth of the river. A modicum

of spectacle glossing sensitivities. Antagonizing

equivalents to subordinate positions. Down wind’s way

of wandering where stillness once roamed the

contemplative, without a thought to be caught in the

snare of the quietude. Over easy. Under the watchful I.

Forsooth or consequence. Supplementing a color’s

scheme. Floating a love boat down the alimentary canal

as the angels make waves rise and fall into patterns of

ephemerae and loss. Stirring doubt as prelude to

narrowed corridors straightening paths back to the itch.

Painting amorphous exteriors to reflect a smidgeon at

the core calling anomalies the norm to be. When the

words fail the litmus testing the waters for clarity in

perceiving the echo’s plea for mercy. Tying knots in the

tapestry of identity dusting off the guttural for the

groan, recruiting adherents to the belief in

coming clean as a means of unburdening

the woeful of memory.

Square in the I

Supplemental agonies bringing the point

home in a limousine, double parked in the

space between the pangs. A stutter in the

law of averages hiccuping miracles, evening

out of need to balance the losses with the

salience of an underground holding the

world in place. Tongues tickled at the taste

of adverbs describing the stillness at the

core of the commotion. The mitigated to

a standard as if part of a pattern, bleeding

anomalies as the sun sets in its way of

burning bridges. Eking out an element

of confusion from the rote recited as

curative to a fault. The center of a gravity

seemingly well placed, as the darlings of

the unconscious convene at the breaking

point. Taking a mind off its plateau of

prominence, overseeing the etiquette of

pain to edgy vigils for the stricken by the

thought. Subsumed by the surrealization

of the all too common aches. Stacking the

deck with euphemisms even as the blood

flows into the straits narrowing to a lilt,

to shield the quietude enveloping where

it is it hurts to navigate the consequent

limbo passing muster off as remedy. The

broken’s way of mending the template

to allow for what hurts even as it heals,

wounds holding court for judgment

day.

Aside From

Earning acquittals on minimum wages of sin

stuffed into poses, predicated upon making

a face stand still for something. Adjunct

confessors spilling beans laterally in approach

to forging ahead. Mouthing words at sharp

angles to the meaning all in one breath.

Carrying the load for the next to balance on a

wheeze. Blending into the horde humanity

tends toward of an evening out over time,

dilated with remembrance measured by

what’s forgotten in getting there. Beyond

a smother’s reach into pockets of the audibly

evident, listening for indications of the height

from which the other foot falls into play the

fool. Stuffing the nooks with aversions

articulated in tropes the eyes second, in

reflection upon chances lost to see the end

imbedded as it was in the beginning. A nod

bobbing for apples of the eye before all is

laid unbearably bare, for the audit of

immovables one irresistable urge

at a time.                

2 pomes || billy bob beamer

POME

If I   Go^ur  met acci dent p/\o   runne

Th/o lush     Ani      crash  /s[ght

li /on p[uh] might use a somewhited

,then, histord[u]d plume

Pulse. ^urch ve

R ake.

hu/’\ ort   crah cho k or

menth st-r asper.qui

ingesine depnlte sa

plied a^w

eEqUi /Li|

ivour

flushu b~

m r

 

pers n.rachstos, pai nal liste dipnatad.wals

.wolsonafoledcomaent

eir looms~sooky

Vastroa

Pulrds*

*3 times and fade

 

 

POMEnotes fr. Pocketsleep

 

tende^ntious ne_stle

entious nestl

scummiest exhaustion

 

ver  b^alize_d sl_oth

moireau burn -|iest

catechized critiq^ue

 

dudunction whistle

beget wager lookey

c_ozen g_razing willikers

 

lothep sleep o_{f den}g slea

pocl_ekboetc^oribllectind

invei^gled _ni^netieth malgra

3 poems || John Pursch

Pomp Eruption Payday

Sold to pilfered soup, greedy kitchenette police in Crooked Limb of borough boxcar billy clubs and bayonets on bayou bivouac from diurnal digitalis drop deftly into twins of timid wise guy grunge and dappled thighs of dish-toed dancing Queeg.

Offshore breath replays in silent mint infusion bier from ballyhooed decay to doffed detrital helipads in copulation rites, stoned desperately by nary huff a mullioned crowd-cheer-pleasing pomp eruption payday scrawny cola can of cold coniferous sarcophagi briquettes.

Yes, eyes snow tare hiss hallways grooming snuff savory man’s lonesome hard fair chest an altered galleon of compunction, rationed bide a touchstone sandbar fuel decree.

To giblets of imperiled charity and chastity hound faith hand hope sounds freely blond frivolity in frolic beach bomb lover tours of solitary Tie, Howayan, Osteopithical Sauce Trailian Parrier Grief.

Pultipupipular

Arftipili quodenturon hop chairingson

proctilian scepter prawn smelter blon

tumica ranabule isticle premulon wobble,

scim tortuon gorfle of gobblerquen

intermistular hepti pharangumon orally

somesquatch pendicular oscil.

Entriforn grupunert mephtioc

orsiam in pultipupipular sortie seas,

morphing into preparatory crenelations

of high quease torpedo trance scarabs

on motu barricade inference of hefty

preferential yacht coulisse.

In Zeroed Time

A question burbles, blown from whales bequeathed to steepest waves of bygone lust and bony-fingered histories in fully phlegmatic musculature.

I stare at dockside clock hand sweep till analog converts to pixelated digital delay, all ones in zeroed time, and instantly believe in reified sensations tunneled into furrowed prows of tugboat terminology and terminus of waves collapsed in floating diatribe of longer shoreline manacles, Manichean mucilage, and concubinal concupiscence.

Chiding goal seekers chill refurbished benefactors to the bona fide munificence of all multicolored astigmatic birefringent semicolons of fierce lobotic wanderings.

Pentagons spin down to callow cotton daydreams, flossing mottled hawks with musical cashews, clipped to periodic placemat stains beneath an elbowed crust of burnished brakepad bread, lined with silicates of syndicated kettle fusion shoes.

I lurch from island filibuster pleas to curbside lounge elopement chair to lopped sty scrolling forgery of blockage credo confidence, wondering why headaches cut me off at past pastoral parlor gamut cul-de-sac corrosion.

Just gimme that gimcrack gumball, garrulous governor gone guffawing to Gallipoli or titled teary-sighed Galapagos, siphoning gaslight casket creaks from pending walrus paperweight machine.

poetry || Texas Fontanella

viation, it invit s biologic
de formation of privilege
s b,ut wit  out. It enclose
onception that avoids  re
criminatio , fron t  he dis
tinctures and re la tionsh
ips they ideal o(r)gy mas
que(  )ra         ding as sci
lence I w.ill demonstrate
he  heteronormatively en
coded   in every cell)—at
pre cis e ly the mo   ment
that all of this  is in crisis
we opt  fort e n ext sexit



imitative, the one difference between us
&(sys)them.    [n]o [y]ou [h]ere […this]
transgenre inconti                        vention
s l a n g u a ge as a, the,      means of pro
duction, psych                              ological
realT y,                                  are you able
ism to                                         do t  hat?

text || Lawrence Upton

8 misreadings of the text on a corporate grocery bag (cooperative)

OP  TER  TERPI  OPF  OP  TER  TERHF  TERH

AF  SH  SHOO  AFT  SAFT  HOP  HO  HOP  SHOP  AFTER  AFT  HOP  SH  SH  AF

SH  FTE  PEOSH  SH  TER  PAF  HO  ESH  AFTER  HOP SHOTER  FT  PA  HO  SHO  SH  SHERS  TER  PA

AF  PA  RSH  FTER  PA!  HOP  RSH FT  P  OP  ERSH  PAFT  SHO  TERFH

A  OP  ER  AP  SRE  POH  OSH  REF  RET  SHR  HRS  HSR  FAP  OHS  RET  APO  AFO 

RE  FA  OH  SRET  FAP  FAPO  FA  PAFT  ORS ETFA  PO  SRET  RET TFA  FAP  AP  PO  OH  RET  APOH  FA  POP

EO  EET  AOH  STPA  SRET  FAP  HOPA  APS  PHO  HER  HERSH  TAFT  FAH  RETFA  POPO  ORSH  FOO  FEE  FAR  TFA  REO  PAFT  TORS  RESH  PEOT  HOPAFT  OPSH

PO  RAAP  PAFT  ROSH  FERT  POP  TAP  PORA  PERSH  PRET  PERT  TERS  ROP  SHTER  TERAFT  FAP  POSH  HOFA  PER  SHOOSH  POOP  PAFTOP  AFER  TERP  FOOR

poem || Jeff Harrison

The First Glimpse Of Miss Ashe

 

ashes on would-be-devoured snows
grew like wolves, even, lilies behind

would-be-devoured snows, lilies behind
tears left ashes' voice sulphury

snows midst wolves, lilies behind
would-be-devoured snows
wished of wood for the fire

fire began to ice, really,
while just the starry fell, leaving
would-be-devoured lilies behind

ember gone yet Miss Ashe
fired up this her weeping,
though I, lilies behind, suspect
she's grieved other prey

5 poems || Volodymyr Bilyk

1.

Take a sheet of paper

Make a ball.
 

Now:

thou shalt pound paint

attached to the chair

abstractedly
 

:tarry, try, 

sigh.
 

(hop)

"a bit sooner than usual"

2.

after a decent pause

tide over the can

up until the point 

when it's flat enough 

to be thrown 

faraway
 

later

find the bird
strike the palms together repeatedly

celebrating this  bosh moment

3.

get a long hair

(wait until it grows long or buy a wig - no matter)
 

pull  it;

put it in your mouth;

suck it;
 

all over the sudden

listen to the imaginary sound of  besting 

'till it feels inapprehensible     

4.

umbra moves.

closer.
 

you can see the bra

and it's not funny

- it's a cloud

in a bra.
 

And then:
 

"beck,

sweep,

bow,

waft..."

...

...

...

...

...eyes clap, 

thunder.
 

...definite funk.

5.

fidgety flash,

breath

:
 

finger moves to thumb.
 

together they move against each other...
 

wait!

Is it a kind of  osculation?
 

Uh-hm.

2 poems || Raymond Farr

I Needed Fresh Glissade across the Pond

To those of you who live invisibly—
We leave you the reek of poisoned Kool Aid

The end of history & Juan Valdez
We leave you two feet lost in the leaves of Buchenwald

We leave you going crunch like life is made of flavor crystals
We leave you light through a straw we got at McDonald’s

We leave you slime on the waggle of a walking fish
We leave you—A corpse is a corpse of course of course!

We leave you nothing pasty or hallucinogenic
We leave you a Stuckey’s toilet on a blue afternoon

We leave you the empty soccer stadium & turf hardened by winter
We leave you to those who live eternally in silence

We leave you explosions in the rooms of our sexual whispers
We leave you the story of the one bald tire of the 20^th C blowing in traffic

We leave you a big chorus of Boris is dying
We leave you barren & wild on the outskirts of Moscow

We leave you these donuts sprinkled with rain
We leave you a million to one shot just pay us a dollar

We leave you cuddled up yr bodies steaming like garbage
We leave you wanting nothing & craving everything

We leave you ice cream melting on the dashboard of yr Saab
We leave you like a box of dead mice a lover has killed for you 

We leave you forbidden candy on a make-believe table
We leave you enwreathed in the halo of yr own brilliance

We leave you sucking yr thumbs on a dangerous street
We leave you a devastated emptiness & watching TV

We leave you the shallow husk of things you meant to say to us
We leave you at 12:24 pm like it was just any other Tuesday

Delete: In the Left Hand—Asylum

Delete: at some point delicious embankment
Delete: the atrocious head-banging to begin with

Delete: unusual winter oscillation, impervious disillusionment
Delete: some of us have deadlines

Delete: a dog barking in this big field of red glass
Delete: sweeping reformation of the swimming ideas

Delete: Robert Bly or Ai or The Sun Also Rises
Delete: a pineapple lamp—the big disgusting saxophone

Delete: instinct isn’t something a person is proficient in
Like “tagging” or onomatopoeia

Delete: like one hat in the squalor of a minute’s revolt
Delete: & when I die bury me in the brightest white buoy—

Delete: a single thought to silken my coffee
Delete: there is no room for spangled garlic roast potatoes

Delete: a parallax of shadow eating creosote & timber
Delete: a randy huff of unshaven

Delete: no sick noises moving across rooftops & front hedges
Delete: no preflight soup or arrow thru the statue’s head

Delete: half naked in the farts of my own emptiness
Delete: it was curtains for yours truly

Delete: a white piano played Burning Down the House

Delete: his feet are a song about how one night he came home

Delete: where was I to go when the music just stopped?

Delete: I was no fucking excellent flamingo I know that now

Delete: I confessed to over 6,000 lies in a cold house
Delete: I crawled up & over the lava rocks of love

Delete: I was trying to figure things out in my head
Delete: & my middle finger—pink & raw & cut off at the knuckle!

Delete: the room was too bright to see in the dark
Delete: the poem sees fit to engage the human paradigm

Delete: my mother for yr carburetor!
Delete: commerce like a dictionary or phone book

Delete: the moment the music loses its edge
& time stops within reach of the propeller

Delete: the language taking its most beautiful form
Delete: I wade out into the owls of bare evening

Delete: I love you petro chemically & that’s all

Delete: the sky rolling up like a butcher just now

Delete: boots on the blithe feet

Of what sinks in the distance